Moving Comfort supports retailers with new bra training manual, video
Moving Comfort’s sport bras have always been known for supporting a woman’s “girls,” and the company is now taking it one step further by supporting specialty staffer training on fit and sales techniques with a new manual, video, consumer research and website re-launch. Find out how it can help your business.
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With eight of 10 women wearing the wrong size bra, Moving Comfort pooled its expertise and created an education manual and training video for retailers on fit and sales techniques. Part of that research will also be included in its consumer website re-launch this month.
“We view sport bras to be one of the most important pieces of equipment next to footwear for women, and there should be resources and information put together as much as the footwear space,” said Sara Woods, marketing manager for Moving Comfort.
“At the end of the day, we want women to understand they need support.”
Tapping into the collective knowledge of the company’s bra development team and information compiled from various sources over the years, Moving Comfort spent the last six months putting together a thick training package “The Sports Bra Book.” Designed similarly to a magazine, the majority of the binder’s content is focused on how to fit sports bras as well as how to best sell them with refined techniques.
It includes sports bra basics — such as factoids, selling tips and terminology — and a six-page how-to-fit guide that covers determining sizes, measuring tips, checkpoints for a proper fit and troubleshooting common fit issues. It also has tech sheets on each current bra style Moving Comfort offers, as well as a catalog.
The manual also includes interactive elements, as well. There is a nearly 15-minute video on sport-bra fitting that complements the binder’s content and a pouch filled with retail “tools.” Among them are measurement wheels, tape measures and mirror adhesives that offer consumers fit tips when a salesperson isn’t in the dressing room.
“Nobody else was doing it, and we felt like it was a good opportunity for us to fill that need,” Woods said. “We want our accounts to have that confidence in our brand that we are the leaders in that category, and what better way to do that then give them useful tools and information.”
Moving Comfort wrote and designed the content to make it more approachable for male staffers to read through it and not feel uncomfortable.
“We wanted to break down the barriers,” Woods said. “The men on the floor should feel comfortable walking up to a woman and being able to – at a high level – talk about the product they have in their store. We wanted to make sure that we had some really key selling tips and points that they could talk to.”
So far, 600 books have been sent to specialty running and outdoor stores that carry at least six of the company’s sport bra styles. (To learn more, contact brafitexpert@movingcomfort.com.)
“We made it a little bit exclusive. We wanted to give it to retailers that had made a commitment to the Moving Comfort brand,” Woods said. “If you’re going to support your customers, you need to have different bra styles and sizes that cover women from A to DD cup sizes.”
Carol Rolfes, who handles apparel sales at Fleet Feet Sports in Brentwood, Tenn., outside of Nashville, received the book because her store carries at least 11 styles of Moving Comfort sport bras.
“I read it cover to cover, and thought it was well put together and informative,” she said. “Although I’ve been trained in bra fitting, it really helped me out, reminded me of some things I had forgotten and just gave me more confidence when doing a fitting.”
Rolfes told SNEWS she now keeps it handy in the back room for reference. “It’s a great resource – it shows you it’s not just about rib cage and cup size, more goes into bra fitting.”
Moving Comfort is also updating its website — www.movingcomfort.com — with aspects of the manual content, fulfilling its consumers’ most-often-asked-for request: more fitting tips and technical information.
“We’re creating a one-stop shop on our website that will have an updated bra fit section and bra finder section,” Woods said.
The website re-launch is scheduled for March 2011, and will include video snippets from the training video, edited down and specialized for consumer use.
Ultimately, the company wants to be considered the expert in sport bras and, in doing so, wants to help keep women active.
“We hope the woman walks out of a store with a Moving Comfort bra,” Woods said, “but even in the end, the most important aspect is that the staff knows how to properly fit a woman and she has a product that will work for her.”
–Wendy Geister
